The General spent hours weighed down by nothing but grief and agony, climbing to the tallest heights and summits in the kingdom, looking upon on the rest of the world with naught in his heart but emptiness and misery. He thought about tossing himself off the fortifications more than once – everyone in his family had either gone or perished, so why shouldn’t he – except the poignancy of promises, of convictions, of accursed vengeance wove too closely through his blood and kept him in place. So he wallowed in his misery until the dawn rose, high in the sky, vivid with illustrious hues, and he stared at it, narrowed his eyes, and was nearly urged to spit at its decadence. He maneuvered from misery and guilt to waves of bitter, unrelenting anguish and contempt, and the abhorrence was easier to hold beside him, picking his way down the mountain with such brutal, rancorous acrimony that even Orsino bit his tongue.
 
There were still things to do in this realm, but lord, he didn’t want to commit to any of them.
 
He forgot about the title fallen over his shoulders. He forgot about the tenuous weight of oaths and assurances laden from his lips. He forgot about the shackles and tethers suddenly keeping him bound to this sovereignty, and just pieced together remnants of movement and motions – blank, indifferent, coveting his father’s old expressions as he wandered from plain to plain, from rime to valley. The black kitsune was nothing more than a wayfaring mercenary at his side, looking everywhere but at the crestfallen boy who kept threatening to fall apart. The companion drifted his sights and settled them upon beasts by the lake, and the prince clenched his jaw, kept it tightly in place, tried not to remember the lengths of a funeral, the cascading droplets of an early spring rain. The fox lowered his head and trudged onward, while the youth stood stock still, and watched them for a few moments, uncertain whether he should proceed back into shadow, retreat, brood, reflect on his misery until the sun fell again, or reemerge and attempt to be a phoenix, rising from his father’s fallen scythe.
 
The scion might have committed to the former, had one of his Soldiers not been a familiar form: Beloved, strange and unnerving, but a willing compatriot to misdeeds and ominous etchings, like a sketch of canvas he could never accurately predict or understand. The other was entirely foreign to him, winged, likely a newcomer – and for a moment he thought his father might come, summoned from the wings, ignited by curiosity and intrigue, welcoming the stranger with his own brand of hospitality. But no ghosts emerged, no wraiths inclined.
 
Go, was all Orsino hissed, snapping Erebos out of his trance, and the prince yielded only out of habit, following the floating songs of ladies and soldiers, struggling not to lower his head and unravel at the seams, obliging movement and motion until he’d reached the quiet, lulling songs of the lake and proceeded no further. “Good day,” he called over the horizon, nodding his head because it’s what his mother had always said to do to anyone he met, raising it back when it was proper, bestowing a smile that almost certainly didn’t reach his eyes (haunted). “I’m General Erebos. Who are you?” He extended towards the painted Pegasus, and the title still sounded strange across his tongue, stupid, asinine. But he remained amiable, rose to its pretenses because it’s what he’d always done, forcing pretenses along his mouth when all he wanted to do was be alone, be away. “I trust Beloved has treated you well,” and here he raised a brow, almost cunning, nearly himself, urged to delve into chicanery and charisma because it was familiar and known (and his lines were nearly a joke unto themselves, for he’d seen her capabilities, heard the warrioress’s promises before). 

Erebos

i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want